Where in the Republic does an Athenian businessman castigate "Socrates for his pursuit of abstract knowledge"? Source: _Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count_ (2009). p. 49. > Second, the Confucian tradition, of which Japan and Korea are a part, has little use for the idea that knowledge is valuable for its own sake. This starkly contrasts with the ancient Greek philosophical tradition, which prized such knowledge above all other kinds. (I emphasize the term _philosophical_ tradition in the preceding sentence. **There is an amusing passage in _The Republic_ where an Athenian businessman castigates Socrates for his pursuit of abstract knowledge, telling him that although it is admittedly attractive in the young, it is disgusting in a grown man. [Emboldening mine]**) Where in the Republic does an Athenian businessman castigate "Socrates for his pursuit of abstract knowledge"?

In Book III there is a passage somewhat like yours:

> The subjects of poetry have been sufficiently treated; next follows style. Now all poetry is a narrative of events past, present, or to come; and narrative is of three kinds, the simple, the imitative, and a composition of the two. ... Poets and musicians use either, or a compound of both, and this compound is very attractive to youth and their teachers as well as to the vulgar. But our State in which one man plays one part only is not adapted for complexity. And when one of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit himself and his poetry we will show him every observance of respect, but at the same time tell him that there is no room for his kind in our State; we prefer the rough, honest poet, and will not depart from our original models.

But the contrast is not between abstract and useful knowledge, but between elaborate and simple literary styles.